Measuring the Transit supply In Vancouver (*)

When it comes to service delivery, the TransLink narrative goes like this:

Delivered transit service hours have fallen behind the population growth since 2010 reaching levels last in 2008. That is leading to more crowding, more pass-ups and a worsening of the overall transit experience [1][18].

The graph presented to support this thesis is usually a truncated version of the below one:

A problem with this narrative using the total service hours delivered by the TransLink subsidiaries and contractors is that it magnifies the 2010 peak, by including service provided for the Olympic Games. A second issue is that it includes the technical services which could vary greatly without affecting the transit supply. Below is an example of such differences [2]:

route	Revenue hour service	Total hour service	difference in %
All	3,841,860	4,950,000	29%
555	13,500	21,400	60%
96B	42,900	62,400	44%

.

Revenue service or service supply means service dedicated to move transit passengers (passenger can use the provided service). Total service is the revenue service + technical service (deadhead run, layover…). That is matching the APTA definitions. Translink’s reports tend to easily interchange the both terms.

The relatively important difference between the total service and the effective revenue service had already been noticed as an optimization avenue by the 2012 TransLink commissioner’s review [17]. The more fundamental issue is that the service/hour provided is not representative of the Transit supply:

• The replacement of a 40 foot bus by a 60 foot bus wouldn’t increase the service hours per capita, but it could address overcrowding.
• Faster bus routes infer less hours of service but are improving the service offer.
• The replacement of a bus route by a rail one, offering much faster and higher capacity vehicles, can both address crowding while improving the offer, while resulting in a decrease in total service hours.

Seat.Kilometres Supply

The seat.km metric; which needs to be understood as (seat+standee).km in the transit world; is a much better way to evaluate the transit supply, and for this reason is widely used in the passenger transportation industry.

As an example: 1 hour of coach service on the express route 555 using the Hwy 1 HOV lane can provide ~3600 seat.km when one hour of C23 Shuttle bus in Vancouver’s Yaletown, provides only ~320 seat.km. Differences in average speed and vehicle capacity drastically affect the offered service which is reflected by the seat.km metric:

The effect of the introduction of the Canada line service in late 2009 is clear. Though service hours may have stayed stable since 2011, the seat.km supply has slightly increased thanks to a greater use of articulated buses. The advent of routes 96B and 555, having higher speed than average, also provides more seat.km at constant service hours. Is this enough to keep pace with the population growth?

The point is moot. If a downtrend can be observed since 2011, we are nowhere near the 2008 level. The introduction of rapid transit lines tends to exhibit a positive long term trend.

Canadian and International Comparisons

To provide a larger perspective, the Vancouver transit supply is compared to other Canadian metropolitan areas, using numbers as provided by the Transportation Association of Canada [4]. The Vancouver numbers have been normalized to correlate with those provided by the association [5] . Vancouver tends to exhibit favorable trends when compared to its Canadian peers:

Vancouver pales when compared to Megalopolises such as Paris, London or Hong Kong [6], but its Transit supply is much greater than in Portland and comparable to the ones of European metropolises of population size closer to Metro Vancouver, such as Lille or Lyon [7]. Nevertheless, this comes with one caveat: both Lille and Lyon are fed by an important suburban train network which has not been accounted for in the following figure:

The above international comparison is assuming 4 standees per m2 to estimate the vehicle capacity [9]:

system	bus	LRT	Metro	RER/MTR/Skytrain
Vancouver	76			386
Hong Kong	105	146 [10]		200 [10]
London [11]	79	252[12]	728	509
Paris [11]	83	230	586	1772
Portland	76	166 [13]

The Occupancy rate
Is the Transit supply good enough or not?

The occupancy rate [14] can be a good proxy to assess the relevance of the supply: the higher the occupancy rate is, the more likely crowding issues will arise. On the other hand, a low occupancy rate could suggest an excess of capacity.

Crowding experienced locally with a low occupancy rate could suggest that the transit supply deployment is not optimal, but some other issues could arise: A directional demand unbalance makes crowding difficult to address without deploying excess capacity on the underused direction.

Possibly a transit world specific: even the busiest systems don’t achieve an occupancy rate greater than 30%. In that light, the TransLink system appears to be a heavily used one.

It is worthwhile to note that TransLink estimates the average transit trip length at ~8km [15] when TfL estimates the average bus trip length at 3.5km and the Underground trip length at 8km [16]. Similarly the average bus or tram trip length is 3.3km and the subway trip length 5km in Paris. The reliability of trip length data could be an issue but a consequence of longer trips in Vancouver is that TransLink needs to provide more seat.km per trip than London or Paris.

(*) This article has been first published in the December 2014 newsletter from Transport Action BC.

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[1] Mayors’ council on regional transportation Regional Transportation Investments: a Vision for Metro Vancouver – June 12,2014

[2] Difference between the GTFS data (revenue hr) and the Translink 2013 Annual report (Total service hr). see more in this post

[3] Supply is computed on the first Friday following Labour Day (usually one of the busiest Transit days of the year) of each year from GTFS schedule and fleet deployment observations. The vehicles’ capacity used are the maximum as displayed on the concerned vehicles. see more in this post

[4] Transportation Association of Canada. Urban Transportation Indicators, Fourth Survey. Ottawa :2010

[5] Numbers otherwise differ, possibly due to different assumptions, such as on the vehicles’ capacity. The urban areas, used by the association [4], don’t match either the area covered by the transport agencies, so numbers are subject to caution.

[6] Numbers for Paris come from the Observatoire de la mobilité en Ile-de-France, London numbers from TfL [16] and Hong-Kong numbers from the 2013 MTR Annual report.

[7] Number for Portland, including population, comes from the APTA, and includes the scheduled services provided by Trimet, C-Tran, SMART and Portland city.

[8] Numbers from the Certu (“Annuaire statistique Transports Collectifs Urbains”, 2014) with bus capacity normalized at 83.

[9] Agencies could have different standards (e.g. 6 persons per sqm in Hong Kong). The vehicle capacity is per bus or consist (train) unless otherwise specified. When different vehicle types are used, a vehicle revenue.km weighted average is used.

[10] The capacity is per car. Hong Kong Tram capacity is 125, and Hong Kong Airport train capacity is 120 per car.

[11] Vehicle Capacity number from Report on mobility an transport #1 – Institut D’aménagement et d’urbanisme- November 2014”.

[12] Weighted average of a DLR train capacity (280) and a Tramlink train (200).

[13] The capacity is per vehicle, the Portland streetcar capacity is 200.

[14] Also called Load factor.

[15] Translink: 2014 Business Plan, Operating and Capital – Budget. New Westminster 2014.

[16] Transport for London. Travel in London: report 7. London 2014.

[17] Shirocca consulting Translink Efficiency review. 2012,

[18] A narrative largely echoed by Lower Mainland translink advocates as illustrated here.

Translink, the faregate, and the scofflaw

The Translink news reported by 24h [1] and already discussed by Stephen Rees:

People buying cash fare on bus, will not be able to transfer on the “gated” system, that is the skytrain, but also the Seabus

That is presented as a new tariff rule by Translink.

The scofflaw

Translink can’t change the short term fare at will, but need approval of the competent authorities, as stated by the law. Translink is governed by the South Coast British Columbia Transportation authority act. The act stipulates that when a fare increase (greater than 2% annually) or a first-time short term fare is contemplated, it requires that Translink

• prepares a supplemntal plan to be approved by the council of Mayors (section 200)
• And gets an approval by the Translink commissioner (section 203)

The Translink proposal is in essence a “first-time short term fare” for people buying cash fare on bus and transferring on train or bus (pretty much like people buying a cash fare at YVR pay a $5 “first-time short term fare”).

Unless Translink gets approval of the council of Mayor and Translink commissioner, it has no legal right to deny entry to the Skytrain and Seabus to holder of cash fare purchased on bus.

Doing so, by erecting a faregate, not working with those cashfare, is putting Translink in the feet of the scofflaw.

Obviously, like any scofflaws, it will have many excuses:

The Rubbish

“To convert all the bus fareboxes to issue passes that would access the fare gates would cost about $25 million”

The argument is so dump that it is borderline insulting

No need to do that, what is just needed is a way to use the cash fare issued onboard a bus on the skytrain system. By own Translink’s number, a compass ticket machine (to put on bus) cost ~$15,000 [3]. have such machine just converting a magnetic cash fare to a Compass ticket can’t cost more (a magnetic strip reader is much cheaper than a machine sorting out coins). Installing one at each of the ~50 Skytrain stations, could cost less than $1 million. Probably much less, since what is just needed is to modify an already existing magnetic reader to allow it to read the cash fare (like the parking machine at the Vancouver airport does) or add an extra one, on an already existing Ticket vending machine.

“We are not unique in our approach. Many other transit systems around the world, including London and Paris, also don’t allow cash bus to rail transfers.”

That is again rubbish.

• Both Paris and London faregates accept magnetic tickets
• In Both Paris and London, the non transferable bus ticket was a policy preexisting the introduction of the smart card. At least in Paris, the Media used to issue onboard ticket is the same than the one used to issue off-board ones: the faregates are able to process magnetic ticket purchased onboard, read the information on it, and decide to open or not the door accordingly: It is a fare policy choice, not a technical limitation

“It is only customers who purchase fares on buses with cash who will not be able to use those transfers to transfer to rail—approximately 6,000 customers per day out of our 1.2 million daily rides”

How credible is this 6,000 figure? That doesn’t match at all my casual observation on the bus system (cash fare payment is indeed fairly frequent, may be 10% of the rider pay in cash), and it doesn’t match the translink latest annual report[2] either!

• cash fare generates ~$100Million of revenue (that is 25% of fare revenue, so it is not marginal at all!) and you need to issue ~120,000 cash fare users per day to generate such a revenue stream…

Even assuming that the majority of them are bought at TVM, we have all the reasons to believe that 60,000 is a much more plausible figure than this rubbish 6,000 one!

The fact

Translink clearly made a mistake in the implementation of its smartcard system, and instead to recognize it, try to explain it by lame excuses and deceiving tactics.

Let’s hope the council of Mayor will respond appropriately to that, and deny the right to Translink to ban access to skytrain for holder of cash ticket purchased on bus, because it will,

• Reaffirms its authority, hence confidence by the public that Tranlink, as a organization financed by taxpayer moeny is controlled by elected official, not bureaucrat
• Affirms that what is at stake, is not a mere tariff change, but the aim and objective of Translink as a public service (accessible cash fare is an important aspect of that), what is the job of the politics, not of the bureaucrats

If Translink doesn’t find a satisfying solution to accommodate the holder of cash ticket purchased on bus, it will have to leave the faregate doors open: that is simple and that is certainly the cheapest way!

If Translink proceed against the law, it will be then time to launch a class action lawsuit on behalf of the cash fare holders.

In the meantime, to prevent such eventuality, there is this online petition

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Edit

The Translink board of directors has enacted a bylaw on July 24th, 2013, to enforce the new proposed tariff.

Does it means it has the legal right to do so?

The SCBCTA allows the board of directors to change short term fare only under specific circumstances, and this to meet debt obligation (section 223.11).

It is unclear how the board of directors can justify that the introduction of the Compass card, planned for years, meet the requirements to invoke such an extraordinary clause, allowing the board to by-pass the elected officials. there is strong indication that the board of directors has acted beyond its legal right.

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[1] SkyTrain won’t take bus transfers with new Compass Card system, Michael Mui, 24 Hours Vancouver, Wednesday, August 14, 2013

[2] Translink Statutory Annual Report, 2012

[3] the $15,000 figure is inferred from the cost to outfilt all bus with a compass ticket vending machine, $25 Million, divided by the number of bus to outfit, ~1700. Typically a Ticket vending machine cost $50,0000 per unit.

Congestion charge, the case for Vancouver

Congestion in Vancouver

The cost of congestion in greater Vancouver has been priced at up to $1.3 Billion per year in 2002 [1] (for matter of comparison, all combined motorist gas taxes will raise less than $800 million in metro Vancouver in 2011 [8]). Thought the Congestion numbers could look high, it is eventually not high enough to justify to invest billions of $ in new road infrastructures, which are not the most efficient allocation of capital to address congestion issues observed usually no more than 4 hrs a day.

The discussion below, grounded on a previous article as well as traffic data [6], starts of the viewpoint of what it takes to alleviate the congestion in Metro Vancouver using a road pricing model. From this conclusion, we have 2 questions to answer:

• What is the most efficient road pricing model? that is what is the one involving the less overhead cost and still achieving its goal to reduce the congestion?
• What is the better use of the money raised by a road pricing model?

Thought that in the context of Vancouver, road pricing schemes are mostly invoked to address Translink woes, it shouldn’t be the primary goal:

• The cost of a congestion toll should not be designed to match the Translink deficit

The primary goal should be to get the most efficient use of a scarce, because expensive to create, resource: space on our Transportation network.

The allocation of the proceeding of a congestion toll needs to be seen through this lens:

• What is the more efficient use of this transportation revenue stream?

It could not be always the case, but as mentioned in introduction, the general level of congestion in Vancouver-mostly due to SOV- and the general cost of new road infrastructure, suggests it is better to invest it in the Public Transit network. This to provide alternative and efficient transportation means, able to effectively keep the level of the congestion charge under control. This option could be revisited overtime if necessary.

Pricing model

It could be discussed at length about what could be the better road pricing scheme for Vancouver:

• Area charge (London)
• “ideal” Road pricing (all road are priced according a complex formula and complex tracking of vehicles thru GPS…)
• Cordon pricing (Stockholm)
• …

The today municipal politicians mood, is to not oppose to the road pricing idea, but it is to rationalize the inaction toward it:

Anything other that the “ideal” road pricing is not “fair” to the motorists

They could be right, assuming the generalized economic gain largely offset the implementation and operating cost of the proposed model. Considering the overwhelming complexity of implementation of such a model, and the limited amount of congestion in the lower mainland, which limit the potential revenues, it is probably wrong headed:

The model could be fair to the individual motorists, but could be unfair to the general interest: It could cost more to operate than the general economic gain it allows

..and if there is a drawback to the model followed by London, it is this: the operating cost of its pricing scheme absorb largely the economic gain expected of better traffic conditions [7].

Considering the Vancouver topography and the choke points responsible for most of the lower mainland congestion, the equivalent of a “cordon pricing” on the bridges seems the natural way to go.

It is probably the best one from a benefit/cost perspective. Due to the relatively insulated location of Vancouver, we consider an all “transponder” technology (on the model of Singapore), this to limit the operation cost.

Cordon pricing Model for Vancouver

Below, is a list of the Vancouver area bridge with their number of lanes, where toll gantries could take place, to give an idea of the required gantries investment

Bridge	Number of lanes	Estimated annual revenue (M)
George Massey Tunnel	4	38
Arthur Laing Bridge	4	7
Oak Street Bridge	4	7
Knight Street Bridge	4	10
Queensborough Bridge	4	7
Alex Fraser Bridge	6	48
Pattullo Bridge	6	14
Port Mann Bridge	10
Lions Gate Bridge	3	15
Second Narrows Bridge	6	15
Cambie Street Bridge	6	0
Granville Street Bridge	8	0
Burrard Street Bridge	5	0

Cost: $25 Millions/year

If we consider all or part of the bridges above, we can easily see than the gantries investment is pretty limited, and should be apriori lower than in the Stockholm case, and is estimated at $100 millions. Furthermore, as previously mentioned, the geographical location of Vancouver make worthy of consideration the outfitting of at least all lower mainland vehicles (they are around 1.5 millions) with a transponder. Here we consider the outfitting of all of the 2.5 millions vehicles registered in BC:

• Transponder investment: ~$30 millions (2 million of on board sticker at $1.6 + 500,000 exterior unit at $8)

The total initial capital cost of the system can be conservatively fixed at lower than $150 million. Assuming an all transponder based scheme, the maintenance and operating cost couldn’t be higher than the one in Singapore, and is estimated around $10 millions/year. the cost to operate the system is summarized below

Capital	cost (M)
Gantries	$100
Transponder	$30
Annual cost	cost (M)
capital Amortization (15years)	$15
Operating & Maintenance (15years)	$10

Revenue, ~$150 million annually

Traffic on Main bridge of the greater Vancouver area. Toll could be in effect once traffic reach max capacity of the bridge (red line), this is 4hr or less per day. in yellow example of toll fare for some bridges (see (6) for more detail)

It is probably the greater unknown of such a scheme. Based on traffic counting [6], and pricing modelization of a previous study [9], the estimated revenue per bridge is given in the above picture, and achieved by charging bridge crossing an average of 4hrs per weekday only…letting plenty of opportunities for people to move across the region free of charge.

The Impact on the transportation system

While some part of the peak hour traffic will shift toward off-peak, a significant part of it will shift to Transit. For this reason, one could expect:

• a lowered revenue from Gas and parking tax : we estimate this in the tune of $20 millions loss for Translink
• a significant demand increase for Transit : based on the Stockholm experience, the congestion charge could be responsible for an increase of 10% in Transit usage [2]

Whether there is an impediment to the implementation to a road pricing scheme, it is not as much the implementation cost or the effectiveness to reduce the congestion than the capability of the transit network to absorb the modal shift involved by a congestion pricing scheme.

In that aspect, the relatively low public transit usage in the Vancouver region, compared to other jurisdictions which have introduced a road pricing scheme, creates certainly some challenges for Translink:

For that reason, as well as political acceptance, a significant Translink service extension could be required, and that means the $70 million moving forward plan, could be only a starting point in transit increase.

On the other hand, the congestion reduction will help to increase the buses productivity, while that the increased demand will improve the fare-box revenue.

With a congestion charge, this bus could be probably travelling twice faster, and offering twice the frequency – so dramatically improving the service to transit customers- this for virtually the same operating cost. Same could apply to the truck industry.

In Brief

After deducting operating cost and infrastructure amortization, as well as accounting the lost revenue in gas tax, the congestion charge could generate a revenue of $100 millions/year for the Translink coffers.

The lost of gas revenue affects also the Provincial and Federal Government, but one can fairly assume that this is more than offsetted by lower healthcare cost, due to accident reduction, reduction of greenhouse gas emission as well as more active living style associated to public transit use…

From it $70 millions could be already earmarked for Translink extension program as stated in its “moving forward plan”, but due to the effect of the congestion charge, such plan could prove much cheaper to implement.

That lefts extra money to address other woes in the transportation network, like on Broadway.

When to build new road infrastructure?

After good but reasonable alternative transit has been provided and the toll price need to be at a price point considered too high to alleviate congestion: it is time to question the need for new infrastructure…But when the revenue of the congestion toll could not even cover the debt service of a new infrastructure: it indicates not only there is no need for that, but that it is a bad investment if the matter is to address the congestion. That is eventually what illustrates the table above.

The Pattullo bridge congestion toll needs to be priced at a point where it raises “only” $14 million to alleviate the Congestion on it: the debt service of a new $1 billion bridge could be anywhere north of $50 million…

Where Translink stands?

• Mayors of Metro Vancouver have already spent money on road pricing studies [4]. They are apparently not publicly available, but it is not like there is no material around.
• Some mayors of the region have explicitly called on a road pricing scheme, which is also supported by a host of influential people, like the Translink commissioner Martin Crilly or former premier Mike Harcourt and Dale Parker [5], as well as organization like the Surrey Board of Trade
• Mayors of Metro Vancouver have explicitly expressed the request to fund transit on transportation based revenue source only

Considering this favorable environment for a road pricing scheme.

• Why Translink has been unable to come with nothing better than a $0.02/l gas tax?

It seems the main obstacle to a road pricing implementation strategy is now Translink itself: it should have at least put on the table such an option as a base for discussion.

That could help to clarify all the points raised in this blog, eventually debunks some myths …but unfortunately it is not the route chosen by Translink so far…

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[1] this number could look suspicious, since pretty much at odd with the one provided by Statistic Canada, but it is the one used by our government to justify investment in road infrastructure ( Canada pacific’s gateway ) which not only include time lost in congestion but also extra burnt fuel and cost of GHG, so it is only fair to use the same metric.

[2] The introduction of the congestion charge in Stockholm has translated in an increase of 5% of transit usage ( Transport planning in the Stockholm Region, Hans Hede, METREX International workshop, Moscow, June 2006 ), but the modal split was already at 30% for public Transit. It is at 16.5% in metro Vancouver.

[3] That is at least the opinion expressed by the Mayor of Richmond.

[4] GVRD votes to continue study of road tolls, The Province, February 25, 2007

[5] Opportunity for Metro Vancouver transit foundation is now, Mike Harcourt and Dale parker, Vancouver Sun December 7, 2010

[6] Traffic to downtown and traffic on Metro Vancouver’s bridge

[7] The London congestion charge: a tentative economic appraisal, R. Prud’homme and J.P. Bocarejo, Transport Policy Volume 12, Issue 3, May 2005, Pages 279-287

[8] 29.06c provincial tax including 15c Translink tax + 10c federal tax per liter. number from Ministry of Finance Tax Bulletin as in June 2011

[9] From Freeway to feeway: Congestion pricing policies for BC’s Fraser River crossing, Peter Wightman, Simon Fraser University, 2008

Some toll economics

…in the context of a congestion charge…

Toll Revenues

They are mostly driven by the price elasticity of demand (PED). In a nutshell, it is about how the demand for a service (here road access) is affected by a price change.
The greater the decrease in demand for a given price increase, the greater the elasticity will be.

It is an important concept since it can allow to estimate what should be the price of a toll to reduce the congestion to a certain level or what could be the revenue of a tolled infrastructure at a given price.

It is a common occurrence to see the PED under estimated: it has been under estimated in London, in Stockholm, on the Golden Ears Bridge as well as on most of the tolled urban road infrastructure around the world.

According to [5], the elasticity to a congestion charge has been notoriously under estimated by the MOT in the case of Port Mann bridge study. One reason here like elsewhere is that the lower the elasticity is, the easier it is to justify a new infrastructure…while the greater the elasticity is, the lower the congestion charge need to be to address the congestion (or the more difficult it will be to charge high price on a new tolled infrastructure).

That is, the common denominator is that usually a congestion charge scheme is successful at achieving its main goal of reducing the congestion, but that also means it yield usually to less revenue than expected. Here after are some elasticity numbers. the bigger (in absolute), the easier it is to reduce congestion

Study	Estimate	Comment
Vancouver 2008 study [5]	-0.25	Public transit as in 2008
Vancouver 2006 study [3]	-0.32	from survey (variance -0.23 to -0.41)
Seattle [4]	-0.9 to -1.6	from a pilot project (2003-2005)
Toronto 407 ETR [5]	-0.7
Spain [5]	-0.2	Congested bridge
France Expressway	-0.3	Government recommendation
New York bridge [5]	-0.1	Average parking price in Manhattan is $431/month
Singapore cordon [5]	-0.19 to -0.58	average tax on car purchase is S$45,000 (~$37,000)
London Congestion area [4]	-0.53 to -0.96	computed on the initial £5

Operation cost

A toll system incurs some operating, maintenance and capital cost. Usually it is a reason advanced to not implement it:
“the most part of the revenue could be absorbed by the operating cos of the system”, and skeptic people will advance the case of London [9][10]. figures hereafter show that doesn’t necessarily need to be the case, like Stockholm or Singapore examples show

City	Capital cost (M)	Operating&maintenance cost (M)	Revenue (M)	Gantries	Transponders
London [4]	$180	$150	$280
Stockholm [4]	$150	$26	$120	18	unknown
Singapore [6]	$116	$10	$90	45	700,000
Golden Ears Bridge [1]	$60 (8 years)			1	5,000
Port Mann Bridge [2]	$18 (5 years)		NA	1	200,000

But if we talk more of road pricing today than yesterday, it is not because there is more congestion today than yesterday but because it is dramatically much more cheaper to implement it nowadays.

Below are the answers to a recent procurement to equip a HOT lanes on the I85 by the Georgia DOT the terms of the contract being [7]

• 410,000 sticker tag transponders ( 350,000 regular interior windshield tags + 60,000 external readers at 37 gantry locations
• 37 readers at 37 gantrries location

Bidders	TransCore	neology	SIRIT	Kapsch
Transponders	1,005,300	1,076,500	1,697,500	8,680,000
RFID Reader Subsystems Equipment	134,665	175,299	297,66	1,600,975
Support Service	22,400	28,000	34,000	22,086
Total Bid Pric	1,165,235	1,279,799	2,019,163	10,303,061

Detail of the Transcore winning bid shows that the contract is based on

• $1.59 per sticker tag transponders [8]
• $3000 per RFID reader and matching antenna

What seems costly is the video identification (not included in the procurment above), but when a sticker (transponder) can cost as low as $1.59, one has to consider the alternative to outfit the whole vehicle park of its jurisdiction with it

That is what has been done in Singapore. Metro Vancouver is not a city state, but 65% of the BC vehicles are registered in Metro Vancouver and Vancouver could be considered isolated enough of out of Province road access, to make this option certainly worth of consideration for the whole province park.

Effect of the Congestion charge

By virtue of the PED, it reduces the congestion and make trip more predictable, for the remainding users, so those get some value (in time) for the toll.

That applies on Transit as well. bus speed has increased by 6% in London congestion charge area, and 3% in the surrounding (notice that is including an increasing dwelling time due to significant higher patronage, and previously existing bus lanes) [4], but more important is the very significant increase in reliability allowing the agency to reduce lay over and realize significant operating saving.

The shift on public transit can be very significant (numbers from [4])

• In London, the bus service got a 37% patronage increase in the congestion charge area (notice that people also shift from subway to bus, eventually due to more attractive bus ride which became more predictable and faster after the CG came in service).
• In Stockholm, patronage has increased 5% network wide, in a city already having a high modal split in favor of transit (30% trip on transit region wide [11])

Thought that could be the goal of the policy maker, the shift on the public transit system could be a cause of headache if he is not designed to absorb the increased patronage. In Stockholm, the introduction of the congestion charge has been coupled with a significant increase in the public transit offer.

The congestion charge in addition to reduce traffic, has also allowed to increase the road safety wherever applied, and obviously reduced the pollution and inherent health hazard due to it [4]

All in one, though initially not necessarily well received by the opinion, the congestion charge, wherever applied long enough, has sustained the test of time, and greater acceptance by the public [4], that eventually in recognition of the social benefits it is able to deliver.

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[1] Open road tolling for BC Golden Ears Bridge – $60m contract TOLLROADSnews, feb 05, 2007.

[2] CS signs $18m toll system contract with BC gov toiler for Mt Mann Hwy 1 AET TOLLROADSnews May 11, 2010.

[3] “Estimating commuter mode choice: A discrete choice analysis of the impact of road pricing and parking charges“, K. Wasbrook, W. Haider and M. Jaccard, Transportation (2006) 33:621–639.

[4] Road Congestion Pricing In Europe: Implications for the United States H. W. Richardson and C. H. C. Bae , Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008.

[5] From Freeway to feeway: Congestion pricing policies for BC’s Fraser River crossing, Peter Wightman, Simon Fraser University, 2008.

[6] Road Pricing Volume 9, Theory and Evidence, Georgina Santos, Elsevier 2004.

[7] TransCore win GA/I-85 HOT lanes tag-reader contract with $1.59/tag 6C GEN2 TOLLROADSnews, Sep 16, 2009.

[8] For matter of comparison, Translink leases Golden Ears bridge transponder at $1 per month

[9]Without denying the efficiency improvement, in direct economic term as well as in more indirect term (pollution…), some experts consider that those efficiency gains or social benefit, are not enough to offset the operating cost of the system [10]

[10] The London congestion charge: a tentative economic appraisal, R. Prud’homme and J.P. Bocarejo, Transport Policy Volume 12, Issue 3, May 2005, Pages 279-287.

[11] Transport planning in the Stockholm Region, Hans Hede, METREX International workshop, Moscow, June 2006

Viaducts in the urban fabric

Viaduct des arts, Paris

Rail viaducts have being a fixture in numerous cities since the introduction of the railway. They can be considered as an urban blight and objectively often disrupt the urban fabric, but here we present some examples showing that it can be different. Surprisingly enough, it seems that it is a reconsideration of the purpose of disused viaduct in the city [2] which has lead to rethink of its urban integration. Typically this consist to bring, under the viaduct, urban activities contributing to the street life: That means not considering the Viaduct as part of the street itself, but as a building lining up the public space.

Vienna, Austria
Viaduct in “median”

A viaduct in Vienna, once a barrier in the middle of an artery, now is a building lining streets on its both sides. Note how the shops lining the street capitalize on the once a median separation (credit photo: Architekten Tillner)

Buenos Aires, Argentina
A Viaduct lining up a park

In Buenos Aires, the viaduct function, is enhanced by street life contributing activities. Again here the barrier nature of the viaduct is fully assumed, separating a park of its urban environment, and eventually reinforced, with this viaduct arch reconsidered as a “passage”, clearly indicating the “human scale” nature of the expected traffic and enforcing the “oasis” feeling of the park (credit photo Polycentric Linear City)

London, UK

Wotton Street, The structure on the right is a viaduct!

Only around 50% of the londonian Tube is underground. this and the numerous railway network left the British capitale heavily sliced by Viaduct “cut”. Lately tremendous effort has been taken to address the issue, as witnessed by the project “Light at the End of the Tunnel” in the context of the “crossriver partner ship program”

Paris, France
Beside the much acclaimed viaduct des arts (a former railway viaduct), Paris is also well furnished in metro viaduct. They offer to us an opportunities to showcase some idea eventually not working that “well” when you treat the space under viaduct as public space.

The Viaduct of Bercy in Paris, while offering an appealing look doesn’t work that well as a bike path host: the cyclist has basically no visibility, and the “enclosed” nature of the viaduct prevent natural washing of the pavement (credit photo: zagreus)

The space below Paris viaduct is rarely appropriated by the public, one reason could be due to the fact that the steel girder structure is pretty noisy on train passage. The fact that the space is in the median line of boulevard is not helping to draw public naturally. bike path could make a better use, but viaduct piles are as many hazard limiting the visibility of the cyclist (one will note that the Richmond viaduct turn out to be more appropriate to such an use) (credit photo, Duncjam and moonmeister)

One will find some other example on the web [3], but the one exhibited here tend to demonstrate that the integration of a viaduct in the urban fabric is something perfectly doable, backing the effort done on the Richmond viaduct.

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[1] Light at the end of the tunnel: Transforming railway viaducts in central London

[2] from the viaduct des arts in Paris to the HighLine in New York, there are numerous of disused viaduct going thru a renaissance life, with usually the patform being transformed in a green public space ( a list of some projects)

[3] Noticeabily The reader will find other similar example for Berlin at the HumanTransit blog, and more generally could like to take a look at a dedicated thread on skyscrapercity forum